I love variegated yarns, and I love complex stitchwork. But too colourful a yarn means that the stitchwork is obscured; too much patterning and you lose the effect of the colours. This sock design is a nice balance of the two – the stitchwork is strong enough to stand up to a coloured yarn, and yet still lets the colour show through…. allowing you to see both the forest and the trees…

Although the stitch pattern looks complex, it’s actually a 16 stitch repeat, with a couple of 4-stitch cables. If you’ve got good pointy needles, you can even work it without a cable needle.